Race result called two laps early due to flag error

The Chinese Grand Prix was accidentally shortened by two laps because race winner Lewis Hamilton was shown the chequered flag early.

Hamilton said on the radio he had been shown the chequered flag before beginning his final lap.

The classified results published by the FIA noted that the race was “declared at the end of lap 54, in accordance with Article 43.2 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations”.

The rule states: “Should for any reason the end-of-race signal be given before the leading car completes the scheduled number of laps, or the prescribed time has been completed, the race will be deemed to have finished when the leading car last crossed the line before the signal was given.”

The error means Jules Bianchi is classified 17th despite having been overtaken by Kamui Kobayashi at the end of the race.

Probably not this time. FIA clearly goofed up big time and they wouldn’t have been able to explain why they ended the race early. Caterham and Marussia could probably take FIA to task questioning the grounds of premature cancellation.

FIA should consider themselves lucky this happened after the RBR appeal, else it would have been a black mark for them during the arguments with regard to the way they run the sport.

Seems pretty unfair to me. If a position “countback” at the end of the season means this result makes a difference, surely this can be challenged? After all, Lewis is the one who stood to lose out the most from this, and he was fine.

Remember Brazil in 2003 when torrential rain caused havoc. Some laps before the scheduled end Webber spun and crashed heavily, ending up in the middle of the track. Alonso, ignoring waving double yellow flags was in a hurry to make a pitstop knowing the safety car would come out but ended up crashing into Webber’s wrecked car. The race was called several laps early because of the carnage and Fisichella in a Jordan was ultimately awarded the win courtesy of the countback rule, even though he was in second place at the time the race was called. Unluckiest driver was Coulthard who was on the right strategy and would have won the race, but was in the pits for his final stop on the lap that was counted back to, and was given 4th place.

Sorry to disagree, but Fisichella was not THAT lucky. In fact, he was leading the race after overtaking Räikkönen on lap 54, and he went on to lead until the red flag. So it was in fact unfair to initially demote him to 2nd place.
@ Coulthard: He was indeed unlucky to pit a few laps before the red flag, but it is by no means clear he would have won the race. In fact, Fisichella was planning to finish the race without another pit stop. He did confess that his fuel load was critically low, and that he might have had to refuel before the race was over, but there was going to be a safety car after Webber’s Crash, which would have allowed him to save a significant amount of fuel.
Even after all These years, I remain convinced that Fisichella’s win was a deserved – although quite lucky – one. He wasn’t just awarded the win because he happened to be at the right place at the right time. He simply overtook Räikkönen at a time when Coulthard had to lap at least 0.5 secs per laps faster than him to catch him before the regular end of the race. He might have won the race even without the red flag.

This is the FIA, right here. One guy makes a small error completely unrelated to the racing itself, and the last two laps (which are often some of the most important (thankfully not in this case)) are cancelled. It is utterly ridiculous. Really, this does the sport’s image no good.

I cannot believe that such a rule regarding the flags exists now. I can understand ten or twenty years ago, but with the racing and technology today, these things simply shouldn’t happen like this.

The marshalling and flag waving doesn’t help. I saw constant blue flags waved out of place this race, which Crofty also picked up on many times. It was utterly atrocious.

Keith do you know why the was shortened by 2 laps instead of 1? I know that it’s what it says in the regulations but to me it doesn’t seem logical. If they gave the checkered flag on the second last lap (lap 55) why would they classify the race based on lap 54? The only reason I can think of is just in case that a different car, other than the leading car, is shown the checkered flag?

IIRC, at Silverstone in 1985, Jacques Laffite finished 3rd in his Ligier Renault, which then ran out of fuel after the flag on the lap that was meant to be the last. Nelson Piquet wasn’t a happy camper after this because he finished with enough fuel in his Brabham BMW and had the race gone the scheduled number of laps he would have finished 3rd because he would have passed Laffite’s out of fuel Ligier. First and second placed Alain Prost (McLaren) and Michele Alboreto (Ferrari) were unaffected by the officials error.

As it was the Ligier was classified 3rd due to the lap count error and the Brabham was 4th. Not even Brabham owner Bernie Ecclestone could have changed that.

Because track position changes quickly in Formula 1, there is often not enough time to countermand a signalling instruction. Track officials are typically familiar enough with team liveries to discriminate between competitive- and uncompetitive entrants on sight, but the Chinese flagmen were unable to determine on their own that the overtake had already taken place.

They weren’t signalling the wrong driver–they just didn’t know enough about the sport to make an autonomous decision.

I don’t think it was just the marshall who got the blue flags wrong: he was acting under instruction and if you look at the replay you can see the electronic sign just beyond the corner flashing blue as well. These things have to be controlled by Charlie and his FIA team.

Isn’t that just the rule for qualification… As I understand it (perhaps wrongly) you could set the car on fire if you wanted after the race distance was reached, because the race is over but after quali is still part of the GP

No, they give a fuel sample of I believe 900ml after qually AND the race. Remember Seb getting UN trouble for not returning the car back to parc-ferme after he did his doughnuts in India. The cars and drivers are weighed post race and fuel samples taken.

With 100 litres cap on fuel consumption during the race, the car can be disqualified from the results for using more fuel than the allowed limit. If the car didn’t have 101 litres in it at the start, it is team’s fault in ensuring that sufficient fuel was put into the car. If teams are required to give fuel sample at the end of the race, they have to give it or get excluded from results.

Call me crazy, but I just spent ten minutes coming up with different scenarios of sabotaging a race in your preferred drivers favour by finding ways to get on the pit wall with a chequered flag…disguises…parachuting in…self-ejecting flag hidden in javelin…possibilities are endless :D

Does seem to be that the flag waving was somewhat random this race. Seeing Alonso blue flagged because Rosberg was behind him, and then Lewis saying on the radio “I just got the chequered flag” before the race was done.

They were just lucky that none of the random flagging seemed to have impacted the results of the race.

There was some blunder since the very beginning of the race. I followed the race both on live TV and on the i-pad F1 app, and from the start the i-pad showed that KM had 14 laps on his tyres when they were on lap 16…

May be the official dozed off due to the boring nature of the race, woke up hearing someone say “final lap” and rushed to wave the flag when he saw Lewis coming. It is just my imagination though I doubt FIA would elaborate the actual reason anyway!

Good god!!! This is supposed to be a professional outfit and yet they behave like total idiots. If it was amateur sport one could forgive such errors but this beggars belief and shows just what a shambles the sport has become!!

And F1 let’s the fans down again. We and the teams were robbed… how about Koby losing his pass on Bianchi? That just is plain wrong and the FIA/FOM need to get their act together! Things are bad enough this year!!!

Well not really, its quite seinsible, Imagine Lewis had backed off after seeing the early chequred flag while Rosberg shoots past and on to the win after Lewis realises the race is still on has to get back up to speed.
At best they would have to tell the drivers to switch posiitons back, but the Lewis would have lost the lead advantage he had.
Not sure what would happen if it was only after 10 laps…